what about arms forward, like walking Frankenstein monster, or mummy?

or bent like a quadroped? 

sounds silly, i realize, but i was wondering if it haz to be done that way for a poser secrets reason.

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I think it's because it's easier to model the armpits, sides of body, inner arms, shoulders and so forth and makes it easier to rig.  However...

Since human arms cannot go upwards from straight out (try it if you don't believe me*), I think it would make more sense to have them at 45 degrees, so halfway between down at the sides and the maximum upward movement. 

*Yes, you can hold your arms above your head but only by moving them forwards and lifting up from there.  From straight out, you can't unless you twist 'em first. 

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I think it's because it makes it easier to rig their arms (although usually it results in odd shoulder creases, etc)... I also think it could be an attempt at making it easier to create clothing for them... plus (for people using the box modeling method) it's easier to model them straight out instead of bent...

BUT... of course not everyone is gonna do it this way, there are many modelers (past and present) that model their figures with their arms halfway down, of course I'm pretty sure that it would be impossible to make clothes for a figure with their arms all the way down.

I, myself, am making a human figure with the arms halfway down, mainly cause it looks much better in Zbrush and (if I rig it right) will have better shoulders in Poser, lol.

 

EDIT: Posted at the same time as Sam so I agree with Sam, but I tried the arm lifting thing and I had no problems bending my arm (completely straight) at the shoulder above my head... I did it with my arms out like Frankenstien and also did it in the T-Pose and I'm very confused by what you (Sam) meant, lol. XD

Sam is right.

The deltoid muscle abducts the arm, but at 90 degrees the humerus bumps into the acromion.  Beyond this point, further abduction is the result of upward scapular rotation.

http://www.med.umich.edu/lrc/coursepages/M1/anatomy/html/modules/upper_limb_module/upper_limb_05.html

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the T-pose gives the easiest and most clear way to assign polies and vertices to specific bones when rigging. It's not a Poser thing (see maya, Max, ...) and it might even be outdated given modern rigging techniques. But old habbits never die. It might be the worst pose for doing anything else, especially muscle tones, although it proves a nice starting point for cloth simulation as it gives the least interference and folds.

There is hardly a reason to do it when the character is not intended to perform animation.

I can touch my left shoulder blade with my right hand, and vice versa. Does that count for anything?

- - - - - 

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I don't now the reason other people do it that way, but if I was building a mesh I would model it with arms out because it is the median of the likely radius of motion. In other words, that position is the same number of degrees from straight up or straight down. If you modelled the arms straight down, then in a straight up pose you would have twice the amount of deformation of the mesh. If you modelled them straight up, you would have twice the deformation when posed straight down. Of course this logic begs the question "why not model with the arms rotated 45 degrees in round the y axis?".

Quote - I can touch my left shoulder blade with my right hand, and vice versa. Does that count for anything?

Other than you're possibly left handed, no.  Generally, people have greater freedom of movement with their non-dominant arm, when it comes to touching the back of their body. 

Ah, forget that.  I just read you said "vice versa".  So it wouldn't necessarily follow. 

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Quote - EDIT: Posted at the same time as Sam so I agree with Sam, but I tried the arm lifting thing and I had no problems bending my arm (completely straight) at the shoulder above my head... I did it with my arms out like Frankenstien and also did it in the T-Pose and I'm very confused by what you (Sam) meant, lol. XD

Nope, try this:

Hold your arms straight out from the sides, palms down.  Now, try to raise your arms above your head, keeping the same orientation and without moving your arms forward.  Can't be done.  Notice your palms are now facing inwards.  If your arms hadn't rotated, your palms would be facing out.

If none of that happened, you're an alien, a robot or a freak.  :) 

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Sam I was with you till that last. It can be done, but you rotate your shoulder as well.

I agree it can't be done without shoulder rotation. I disagree it can't be done.

I can touch the backs of my hands to each other straight above my head, palms out to the side, not forward. Can't you?

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Quote - I can touch my left shoulder blade with my right hand, and vice versa. Does that count for anything?

I can rub my tummy, while patting my hair!  :tongue1:

I'm with BB, I can do the same. With my arms stretched out, as well as with my arms bended so my wrists touch my head. Are we freakin' aliens now?

And yes, I can rub my tummy while patting my hair, with the same hand at the same time (since I've got hair on my tummy).

We managed to derail this thread a bit, did we?

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You could in theory have three (or more) sets of arm geometry, optimize for diffrent zRotations. One set to be used from -45° to +45°, one set for over +45°, and one set for under -45°. The different geometries would be switched automatically via ERC as 'alternateGeom' (as in the genital switch). I suspect this would work very well at reducing deformation for those doing static posing, but it would probably require some very skilful JCMs to get a smooth transition between geometries in an animation.

P.S.
Sam, you should make an urgent appointment to see a physiotherapist! :scared:

P.P.S
3doutlaw, I can rub my girlfriend's tummy whilst patting her head. Does that count? :blink:

Quote - Sam I was with you till that last. It can be done, but you rotate your shoulder as well.

I agree it can't be done without shoulder rotation. I disagree it can't be done.

I can touch the backs of my hands to each other straight above my head, palms out to the side, not forward. Can't you?

BB, you're right, I gave a poor example of what I meant.  I can do as you say and - as you say - only if I rotate the shoulders. 

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Ok lol I'm just gonna go on what you said cause for some reason I can't seem to see my own shoulder "rotate," so I must just be a freak or blind. XD

Quote - BB, you're right, I gave a poor example of what I meant.  I can do as you say and - as you say - only if I rotate the shoulders. 

That ERC seems to be built-in...

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Not all figures are rigged straight out.  Arrow3D's "Little One" starts out like this.  Makes it hard to use other poses, which is probably the best reason to keep rigging new figures straight out.

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Many people in the industry believe that arms out at 45 degrees (preferably with palms facing down) and the legs about shoulder width apart is the best way to get relaxed posing out of a figure. The T-Pose, as used by many Poser figures is still popular though and is a carry over from a time before weight mapping was a common thing. Depending on the studio you work at, some places will require T-Posed characters while others won't or won't care and that's all based on the rigging tools or person doing the rigging.

As for Poser, one of the reasons I was told we still use the T pose is because it makes working with Walk designer a little easier (no arms crossing over or sticking out oddly). There's likely other reasons too.

I personally like to model with the arms in a 45 degree position and then reposition the arms for its final T-pose position in Poser.

Yeah, I've talked with Teyon about this before. It really would be better to"rig" the figure with the arms at 45 degrees because we could then eliminate the nasty shoulder deformities that exist now. I agree that it is easier to model figures in a T pose, I do it all the time; but once the modeling is done the rigging really take place with the arms at 45 degrees. jmo

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was there any complications with rotation orders, rigging with lowered arms?

thanks!

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No. It's as Teyon says, the T pose assists with Walk Designer...though I vote that Walk Designer gets a face lift so we could rig at 45's.

Comitted to excellence through art.

You can't have realistic shoulders without JCMs anyway, and with the arms bent down to 45°, you need two of them, one for each end-point.

With the arms stretched out in a T-pose, you only need one as the upper end-point is already the default pose.

Same is true for "crouched" legs and "ballerina feet". (Which make rigging flat shoes a nuisance)

I also find a figure where the default are fully stretched limbs much easier to pose because a dial value of 0 is the same as a 0°-movement of the limb. Without an extra JCM, a "pre-bend" joint will also never look perfectly right when straightened.

Again, Poser meshes are different from professional Studio meshes.

They need to be photorealistically accurate, very flexible, easy to use and easy to create add-ons for. Ease of animation is pretty much unimportant.

Raising arms like Sam suggests can be done without rotation, but you need good rotator cuffs to do it. If your rotator cuff is torn (as is the case with many people) then forget it.

Assuming the Poser Position (arms out) IMHO does help with modeling.  DaVinci seemed to like it.

I do recall a trend some years ago to use 45 degree angle down.  Probably a good trend but it was short lived.

Most everyone outside of poser-verse models human figures with their arms at a (more natural) 45 degree angle, as it allows for better rigging and more natural motion.

If you were to go to school for computer animation, you would be modeling your humanoid figures with arms bent at 45 degrees. 

10 years ago the classic T-pose was much more common. Today, poser is pretty much the only area that uses T-pose modeling. It's not a natural pose and puts too much emphasis on muscle definition that is not apparent without the flexing that is required to hold a T-pose. This is why "the industry" has steered away from T-pose modeling. 

 

~Shane

Well...not really but I feel where you're coming from there, Shane. I mean, it's apparently still being taught to people as a viable starting position, as time in galleries and sites like Turbosquid seem to suggest.  Still, it is definitely not the more natural of the two positions, that's not even a debate in my mind. lol. I just wish Walk Designer worked better with it. In Poser's defense, we included the arm out adjustment in Walk Designer some time back for models in non-T start positions or odd body types where the arms may potentially criss-cross during the walk cycle.  So it's something you could do for Poser you just have to let people know that they'll need to adjust the arms in Walk Designer when using it to help with walk/run cycles.

 I think there's also a lot of mocap data that starts in the T-Pose. Not sure how much that impacts the need for that position to still be viable.

My 2 cents.
Starts with a question??
What is the industry standard???
Poser should stick to the industry standard.

Building and rigging is easy with a standard "T" pose.
During all my Poser years, back from Poser 1, I never needed a JCM.

I rig, adapt, morph, re-rig, morph, re-rig, morph, re-rig, untill I get a bood bend with conventional rigging.

Now with WMapping, the process is speeded up quite a bit. I need to make far less corrections to get a bend right.
Some of you have seen my results. => Teyon.

But???
There is another matter that matters more.
Uv-map streching.

When you build and rig and uv-map in a "T" pose you have a problem at the shoulder bend and at the elbow bend.

When pulling the arms down, or when bending the elbow, the outer surface get streched a lot, and the uv-map streches loosing all detail in those area's.

For the uvmap it would indeed be better to build and rig with the arms at 45° down.
But ?? Then you also have to build and rig with the forearms bend at 45°.
Building with the forearms bend at 90° would even be better for the outer elbow uv-map.

I have come to good results with conventional rigging and with WMapping to rig without any hidden thing.
No hidden bones, no JCM's, no hidden magnets.

The only problem that is left is that uv-map streching.

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Most everyone outside of poser-verse models human figures with their arms at a (more natural) 45 degree angle, as it allows for better rigging and more natural motion.

If you're using Maya with the intention of using human IK  and Motion Builder, the T pose is recommended.

I'm considering the 45 degree method for a Poser figure that I've been trying to develop.

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Quote - Ok lol I'm just gonna go on what you said cause for some reason I can't seem to see my own shoulder "rotate," so I must just be a freak or blind. XD

There's a lot of body movement that takes place in a way that people don't think about.

For instance, hold your arm around and twist your wrist. If you pay attention, you'll notice that rotating your wrist requires rotating your entire arm from shoulder to hand. I can rotate my hand over a range of about 270 degrees, and the limit on either side is indicated by discomfort in my elbow, not my wrist.

Same thing for your foot. Rotate it side to side and pay attention and you'll notice that the rotation is actually starting at your hip. If you try to keepyour upper leg still, the amount of rotation your foot can do is very limited. Which, if you think about what types of joints are present in the arms and legs, makes it obvious that has to be what's happening.

Going to Poser (and other programs using human figures), that's why a lot of poses can seem somewhat off and you're not quite sure why. You've got problems with, for instance, a foot being rotated without the knee rotating in the same direction, or a wrist being rotated without the elbow also being rotated.

Teyon - I really don't know what schools still instruct to model at T-pose. Gnomon, Full Sail and the Art Institutes - the top 3 schools in the US that teach computer Animation - all encourage students away from the T-pose. In Maya, and Max - and I'm sure others - there are ways of adjusting the model for IK setup after it is modeled, if a T-pose is required. You aren't locked into a specific default pose with those programs because their rigging capabilities are far superior to that of poser and other more amatuer software. 

Both poses have their strengths and weaknesses. The problem with the T-pose method is that it usually doesn't allow for accurate anatomy the way a relaxed pose does.

I wouldn't look to turbo squid for a solid bet on what is recommended, as a lot of the content there comes from amatuer modelers who are often self-taught via online tutorials, videos, books, etc. Not to say those aren't good sources, but they aren't always accurate with information. 

Every industry pro I'm familiar with recommends modeling at a 45 degree angle for more realistic anatomy. If you look through books on humanoid modeling - Scott Spencer, Ryan Kingslein, Jason Patnode, Jeff Unay, etc, - they all model with arms at 45 degrees. Some even suggest the "motorbike" posing. 

Look at examples posted by actual industry modelers - people who work on games like Dungeons and Dragons, Dragon Age, etc, or films like Iron Man, Avatar, etc - the default pose they were modeled in was neutral, not T. 

In the end it is about what you're most comfortable with as a modeler, and what your rigging guy/team/studio requires. 

In terms of stretching texture maps - as Vilters asked - adding additional geometry to joints helps to mitigate the distortions caused by stretching, as well as allowing for better bends, rotations, etc. They also don't normally contain muscular and tendon detail in their geometry - a lot of those details are obtained by displacement maps. The models themselves have very basic geometry - often standard rows of quads down legs and arms, with simple extrusions for knees, elbows, etc. Edgeflow does of course shape muscles to an extent, but rarely contain the complex - and usually really messy - geometry that poser models contain. The poser model that comes closest to an "industry standard" human model - as far as I've seen - is Antonia (her geometry, not her zero pose). Very simple and to the point geometry. I'm not familiar with all the human models for poser though - only those that have received the most attention in recent years. There may be others out there that are closer to "standard". The daz figures and any of the poser native figures are about the furthest from standard you can get. 

 

~Shane

Quote - Teyon - I really don't know what schools still instruct to model at T-pose. Gnomon, Full Sail and the Art Institutes - the top 3 schools in the US that teach computer Animation - all encourage students away from the T-pose. In Maya, and Max - and I'm sure others - there are ways of adjusting the model for IK setup after it is modeled, if a T-pose is required. You aren't locked into a specific default pose with those programs because their rigging capabilities are far superior to that of poser and other more amatuer software. 

Both poses have their strengths and weaknesses. The problem with the T-pose method is that it usually doesn't allow for accurate anatomy the way a relaxed pose does.

I wouldn't look to turbo squid for a solid bet on what is recommended, as a lot of the content there comes from amatuer modelers who are often self-taught via online tutorials, videos, books, etc. Not to say those aren't good sources, but they aren't always accurate with information. 

Every industry pro I'm familiar with recommends modeling at a 45 degree angle for more realistic anatomy. If you look through books on humanoid modeling - Scott Spencer, Ryan Kingslein, Jason Patnode, Jeff Unay, etc, - they all model with arms at 45 degrees. Some even suggest the "motorbike" posing. 

Look at examples posted by actual industry modelers - people who work on games like Dungeons and Dragons, Dragon Age, etc, or films like Iron Man, Avatar, etc - the default pose they were modeled in was neutral, not T. 

In the end it is about what you're most comfortable with as a modeler, and what your rigging guy/team/studio requires. 

In terms of stretching texture maps - as Vilters asked - adding additional geometry to joints helps to mitigate the distortions caused by stretching, as well as allowing for better bends, rotations, etc. They also don't normally contain muscular and tendon detail in their geometry - a lot of those details are obtained by displacement maps. The models themselves have very basic geometry - often standard rows of quads down legs and arms, with simple extrusions for knees, elbows, etc. Edgeflow does of course shape muscles to an extent, but rarely contain the complex - and usually really messy - geometry that poser models contain. The poser model that comes closest to an "industry standard" human model - as far as I've seen - is Antonia (her geometry, not her zero pose). Very simple and to the point geometry. I'm not familiar with all the human models for poser though - only those that have received the most attention in recent years. There may be others out there that are closer to "standard". The daz figures and any of the poser native figures are about the furthest from standard you can get. 

 

~Shane

 

Please, could you recommend a modeling humans book?
is there one that shows box modeling, by any chance? 
i'm not handy with brush tools, i have to rely on measurement type tools.

 

motorbike pose?

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Honestly, the only one I can think of I wouldn't recommend, but it may help you learn some of the basics. Polygonal Modeling by Mario Russo. The only reason I have this book is because it was one of the course books I got in school. Why they gave it out doesn't really make sense to me as we never used it or even referred to it even once, and everything the instructors said went directly against most of the information in this book, asside from the very very basics. Overall it's not a horrible book, but it is misleading and the resulting topology in it - if you follow it step by step - is really horrendous. There are much faster and more precise techniques that will produce a more professional model with tighter geometry in much less time. On the plus side, it's something for you to start with if you really want a book on polygonal organic modeling - because there aren't many books available on the subject. Those that are available are usually program specific - which can be difficult to follow if you aren't using whatever software the book uses and you aren't familiar enough with your own software to mentally translate the various techniques to what you are working with.

I can look around online and see if I can find one that would be more beneficial to you.

The delima is that poly modeling of humanoid figures is pretty out-dated today. Most books (that I'm familiar with) on the subject gloss over the basics of poly modeling and jump right into sculpting, because most character modelers today sculpt, they don't poly model. Why? Because sculpting is faster and often more precise than pushing points around endlessly, tediously, until you get it just where it needs to be. After the sculpt is finished the model is retopologized in a program like topogun or some other utility that allows you to rebuild your geometry over your sculpted mesh and project the details of that mesh onto the new topology. Books have been focusing on sculpting more than modeling for a while now. That's not to say there isn't a book out there that doesn't teach it, I'm just not familiar with one - and I have several books on character modeling. 

If your intention is to create a realistic human figure, you have to study anatomy. There's just no getting around that. There are tons of anatomy books for artists (illustrators, not modelers), available and all of them have their fans who swear by them. If your goal is more cartoonish figures where there's less emphasis on realism, then you don't have to push so much for anatomy, but a solid understanding of anatomy will make even cartoon characters that much more believable.

One of the best books on character modeling I'm familiar with is Scott Spencer's Digital Sculpting Human Anatomy. Unfortunately it is about sculpting in z-brush and really doesn't say much about poly modeling. On the plus side, it comes with a dvd that includes a basic quad model in obj format, which is used through the course of the book to sculpt on. It's not the best anatomy lesson, but it's not bad either. It just doesn't give a lot of the "why". The down-side to it is the end result is a heroic figure, not too far off from the Freak proportions. 

You might also look through the dvd collection at Gnomon Workshops Online or at Eat3D. Both have some pretty nice dvd training series - many put an emphasis on sculpting though, and not poly modeling. 

 

Oh, and "Motorbike pose" - basically the figure is modeled in a position that looks as tho its riding a motorcycle. That is, all the limbs are slightly bent, usually in a 45 degree angle, or a position roughly half way mark between min and max range of motion. One of the Maya training series books that I have from school - Hyper-Realistic Creature Creation - uses such a pose with the model you build and rig through the course of that book, but the pose is not very common. Some use that approach, just depends on their needs.

 

~Shane

 

lol, if walk designer doesn't like 45 degree arms, motorcycle pose prolly be lots worse.

searched amazon this morning on a couple of the names you mentioned , saw a few books on Zbrush. the closest i ever came to Zbrush was the sculptrix demo.

i don't mind the tedium of pushing verts around in Wings, if it means a clean model at the end of the day.

cut, connect, extrude, move, slide
night terrors of random flipped normals and bits hidden inside the mesh.
*dread, lol
*every so often select all the faces, look at the faces count, then select the whole object to make sure the count matches.
check, by isolated verts.
check, by faces with more than 4 sides.
export obj, run it through uvclassic to check for those out of range messages
do a test import to poser
import obj back into a freshly saved incremented wings file

takes a long time to finish something

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I've got a question about texture stretching in this case: why not tweak the UV map with the expectation that the arms aren't going to be out like that most of the time?

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I can't imagine modeling a full human in a program like wings. Sure it can be done with enough patience, and i'm sure people have, but the headache that would come from it - to me - isn't worth the trouble. You could paint your house with a box of q-tips if you were really intent on doing so, but why would you do that to yourself? 

Wings has its pluses for certain aspects - especially for poser content, but there are other software titles available that are much more fluid and capable of producing better results, at little or no cost. Blender is not difficult to learn if you take the time to learn it. Inside of a weekend or so you could be as comfortable in it as working in wings and it has entire websites dedicated to learning all aspects of it. 

Sculptris would be a good start to getting comfortable with sculpting, and the mesh can be exported and brought into blender for retopologizing. There are several tutorial videos available for sculptris on youtube. 

Winterclaw - I'm not sure I understand what you mean about tweaking the UV map. Can you elaborate?

 

~Shane

Well, if you know the map is going to be stretched when you bend the arms down, why not compress it in that direction so when it stretches, it produces something the correct size.

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Quote - Well, if you know the map is going to be stretched when you bend the arms down, why not compress it in that direction so when it stretches, it produces something the correct size.

That would work, but you'd do it the other way around. You would stretch the polys in UV space to the relative size they'll be when the arms are down. Larger polys in UV space means more texture on each poly.

Depending on your software, one way to do this is to morph the model to a relaxed pose (arms down) before you UV map it, then morph it back to the T-pose for rigging.

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I don't see how that would work but I've never tried it. Just by description, I don't see it working well for artists that use 3D painting to texture, since painting in 3D space and pojection painting both remove a lot of stretching even if the uvs are stretched in 2d space. So the polys you've warped in the UV map to accomodate the stretching on the 3D model will wind up being stretched anyway once you start posing the model.

And until people get over the idea of using a T-pose, shoulders are always going to look like crap in poser, whether they are raised above the head or down at the sides. It doesn't make sense to me why this pose is being clung to for a feature like walk designer that is used by a mere fraction of poser users, and this somehow justifies bad modeling techniques. The excuse that it makes clothing easier to model is just lazy, and continues to make clothing - especially for male figures - look like poser 4 plastic instead of actual clothing. 

Its rather ironic - imo - that poser is geared towards the amatuer market, but makes everything else for content creators 2 or 3 times more complicated than it should be, or is in just about all the other software out there. 

 

~Shane

It boggles my mind too about the t-pose stance.

For me the workflow is to initially sculpt, re-topologize, then model assesories, then create high definition details in Zbrush through Normal and Displacement maps. Everybodys workflow is different and one works with what one knows intimately.

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Autodesk still seems to promote it, DarkEdge. It's being used/taught in some training videos that they posted on their youtube channel. It's one of those things I guess that some folks will always do, like you said, to each his own.

I don't do a lot of straight modeling anymore if I can help it. It's mostly sculpt, topo, uv,texture, rig, morph.